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As a literarygenre,
a memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latinmemoria, meaning "memory", or a
reminiscence), forms a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir'
and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable in modern parlance.
Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical
writing follows the criteria for memoir, as listed here. The author
of a memoir may be referred to as a memoirist.

The nature of memoirs

Memoirs are structured differently from formal autobiographies
which tend to encompass the writer's entire life span, focusing on
the development of his/her personality. The chronological scope of
memoir is determined by the work's context and is therefore more
focused and flexible than the traditional arc of birth to childhood
to old age as found in an autobiography.

Memoirs tended to be written by politicians or people in court
society, later joined by military leaders and businessmen, and
often dealt exclusively with the writer's careers rather than their
private life. Historically, memoirs have dealt with public matters,
rather than personal. Many older memoirs contain little or no
information about the writer, and are almost entirely concerned
with other people. Modern expectations have changed this, even for
heads of government. Like most autobiographies, memoirs are
generally written from the first person point of view.

Gore Vidal, in his own memoir
Palimpsest, gave a personal
definition: "a memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an
autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts
double-checked." It is more about what can be gleaned from a
section of one's life than about the outcome of the life as a
whole.

Humorist Will Rogers put it a little
more pithily: "Memoirs means when you put down the good things you
ought to have done and leave out the bad ones you did do."

Contemporary practices of writing memoirs for recreational, family
or therapeutic purposes are sometimes referred to as legacy
writing or personal history. Such products may be
assisted by professional or amateur genealogists, or by ghostwriters.

Types of memoir

Memoirs have often been written by politicians or military leaders
as a way to record and publish an account of their public exploits.
In the
eighteenth century, "scandalous memoirs", allegedly factual but
largely invented, were written (mostly anonymously) by prostitutes or libertines: these were widely read in France for their
vulgar details and gossip. In another vein, the rhetorLibanius framed his
life memoir as one of his orations, not the
public kind, but the literary kind that would be read aloud in the
privacy of one's study. This kind of memoir refers to the idea in
ancient Greece and Rome, that memoirs were like "memos," pieces of
unfinished and unpublished writing which a writer might use as a
memory aid to make a more finished document later on.

Some professional contemporary writers such as David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs have specialised in
writing amusing essays in the form of memoirs. To some extent this
is an extension of the tradition of newspaper columnists' regular accounts of their lives. (Cf.
the work of James Thurber which often
has a strong memoir-like content).

Memoir Collection Projects

With the expressed interest of preserving history through the eyes
of those who lived it, there are many organizations that work with
potential memoirists to bring their work to fruition. The Veterans
History Project, for example, compiles the memoirs of those who
have served in a branch of the US Military - especially those who
have seen active combat. Many public libraries give Memoir Writing
classes that are geared towards senior citizens and some
autobiographical service companies periodically publish memoir
collections featuring clients that participated at no cost.